Medical rescue and evacuation teams have been used to rescue and evacuate injured patients to treatment centers. In the modern day, the manned (piloted) Medical Evacuation/Air Ambulance service (Military nomenclature: MEDEVAC) is a common practice. Generally, such an evacuation utilizes a large manually piloted vehicle, and depending on location, it is typically a helicopter and/or airplane.
In a military setting, a group of soldiers may call for MEDEVAC to rescue an injured comrade from a dangerous combat situation in restrictive terrain. However, in such a situation, a MEDEVAC air crew may be put in just as dire a situation as the patient. In many combat situations, MEDEVAC aircraft have to deal with both dangerous flying and landing situations (e.g., weather, terrain, etc.), as well as threats from hostile forces. In a military setting, a MEDEVAC aircraft may be required to extract an injured soldier from very restrictive locations, such as urban areas or other confined/remote locations. MEDEVAC missions require highly trained air crews, extensive maintenance and logistical support and require time for the crew to pre-flight, conduct mission planning, start up and take-off. This additional time requirement decreases a patient's chance of survival especially if it exceeds the industry standard “Golden Hour”. Additionally, hostile forces may target MEDEVAC aircraft in order to generate additional casualties and/or captives.
In a more civilian type setting, the use of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has become an emergent technology for precise and rapid short distance delivery. While small unmanned drone technology has developed, there exists no such pilotless vehicle today which can adequately perform MEDEVAC or Air Ambulance operations autonomously.
While some commercial drones have been repurposed for medical services, they continue to suffer from the same limitations of their delivery counterpart; that is that they are meant for small payloads over the course of short distances. A typical delivery drone is capable of traveling approximately 60 miles if it is only carrying a 5 ibs/2 kg payload. The average adult male weighs approximately 180 lbs. In a combat scenario, a soldier may be carrying an additional 70 lbs. of equipment. It is currently not possible for a typical delivery drone to transport the required payload to perform the necessary MEDEVAC/Air Ambulance operations. Due to size and power restrictions, current drones are only capable of delivering minor medical supplies and/or medicine to a desired area.
In addition to the design flaws for a delivery drone, the typical delivery drone cannot merely be repurposed for MEDEVAC/Air Ambulance purposes. In a traditionally manned MEDEVAC/Air Ambulance, the transport is capable of including a trauma or medical team that is capable of at least monitoring the patient, and relaying important medical information to the treatment center while providing immediate but basic treatment to the patient. A treatment facility with adequate notification of a patient's critical needs may ensure appropriate resources (surgical theaters, specialists, blood, etc.) are staged for the patient arrival. A traditional unmanned vehicle is unable to perform these functions. Additionally, the device may be utilized to transport time sensitive organs or medical supplies as required.
In light of the shortcomings in the prior art, there clearly exists a need for a high payload capacity, high performance pilotless aerial vehicle to perform MEDEVAC/Air Ambulance and rescue operations in emergency situations.